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Public Welfare and Public Utility Service 


Bulletin No. 3 


THE ELECTRIC RAILWAYS 


A Brief Account of the Method of Operation of 


Transportation Systems in the Cities 


For Use of Debating Clubs, Oral 
English and Current Topic Classes 


Issued by 
ILLINOIS COMMITTEE on PUBLIC UTILITY INFORMATION 
203 South Dearborn Street - - Chicago, Illinois 





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THE ELECTRIC RAILWAYS 


Introductory. 


In the last Bulletin, No. 2, it was seen how 
the enormous increase of electricity has led to the 
development of the Central Stations where elec- 
tric energy is made from our precious supplies 
of coal and water-power with a minimum of 
waste. 

The present Bulletin shows how the electric 
railways make use of electrical energy to carry 
millions and even billions of people—16,000,000,- 
000 being the number of passengers carried last 
year in the United States by electric cars—from 
town to town, or to and from their business and 
pleasure in the large cities. It also shows how 
electric railways came to be built and how their 
continued development, extensions and improve- 
ments are necessary on account of the growth 
of population and industry. 


Development of Quick 


City Transportation. 

The people of America are very insistent upon 
getting to a place quickly, and being comfortable 
while they are going. Men and women who can 
remember conditions forty years ago find much 
amusement in recalling the way people traveled 
in cities and towns then. It is laughable today 
to recall the time when the first horse cars op- 
erated in a community, but after the first sur- 
prise and joking had disappeared it was found 
that this mode of travel was really a great aid in 
getting around. But it was far from being the 
kind of travel the people desired. 

Then, there was invented the electric motor. 
Then came the first electric car. In 1888, in 
Richmond, Va., the first electric car line was op- 
erated, on approximately six miles of track. In 
1889 one hundred miles of electric lines had been 
built; in 1890, 1,200 miles were in operation, and 
today there are 49,484 miles in service. 

Inefficient as the early systems were, compared 
with the present day equipment, they marked a 
mighty advance, and thereupon there started a 
new era in city development. From that early 
day to this, as there have been new discoveries 
in electrical science, the best brains of the elec- 
trical field have applied these new findings to the 
creating in America of what is today the best 
street car transportation in the world. 


Not a Simple Problem. 


But with all this marvelous development, the 
problem of supplying a community with local 
transportation service is one of the most com- 
plex and difficult which human ingenuity has 


been called upon to solve. Cities have increased 
in population so rapidly—encouraged in the main 
by this very improved method of travel—that in 
no large city in the world has a system of local 
transportation been developed that has proved 
entirely adequate. 


How the Electric Car is Propelled. 


Let us apply the X-Ray, so to speak, to a 
modern electric car and see how “it works.” 

If you have passed by the car barns early in 
the morning you have noticed the motormen 
taking out their cars to start the busy day; or 
you may have passed by the car barns late in 
the afternoon and have noticed extra crews get- 
ting the cars ready for the evening “rush hours.” 
Tracks in the street are a familiar sight; you 
call to mind long rows of poles on either side 
from which is suspended, over the track, a shin- 
ing copper wire. When the cars pass, you fre- 
quently see sparks and flashes where the trolley 
wheel (See T. W. in Illustration) rolls along the 
wire. You may even notice sparks on the track 
under the car wheels. In stormy weather, you 
may have noticed, simultaneously, violent blue 
and yellow flashes at the trolley wheel and on 
the track under the car wheels, giving evidence 
of the electrical energy passing from the wire 
down the trolley pole to the electric motors 
which make the car wheels revolve. 

You naturally wonder what this energy looks 
like, how it acts and where it goes. No one ever 
saw the electric current, but an inventor, named 
Michael Faraday, noticed that when current was 
forced through a wire it would move a neighbor- 
ing magnet sideways; and that when the posi- 
tion of the magnet was changed to the other side 
of the wire the movement of the magnet was in 
the opposite direction. 


The Motors. 


Faraday arranged the magnet so that it moved 
around and around about a shaft; then, instead 
of one wire and one magnet, he added‘ many 
more about the shaft, and so produced a rotating 
motor. This is the electric motor that turns the 
wheels of a street car,—a motor, which, though 
very intricate, is so compact that it can be built 
into the truck of the car. (See M. in illustration.) 


The Path of the Current. 


Where does the current go? You have seen 
the sparks under the car wheels on the track, 
and you probably have already guessed, correctly, 
that the current passes down the trolley pole 
(T. P. in illustration) through the car, the motors 


and wheels into the rails and the ground, finding 
its way through the ground (which is also a 
conductor of electricity) back to a copper plate 
buried in the ground at the power house and 
connected to the generator, thus making a com- 
plete loop, or circuit, for we have found that a 
complete circuit must be provided or the current 
cannot be forced to flow at all. The car com- 
pletes the circuit from trolley wire to rail. You 
may wonder why no shock is received when you 
step on the rail carrying current back to the 
power house. 


Were you tall enough to touch the trolley wire 
at that time you would complete the circuit in 
the same manner as the car does, thus furnishing 
a path to the rail for the current, from which a 
shock would be received. 


Workmen are careful, while working on 
charged wires, that their bodies do not form a 
path to the ground for the current. Protective 
devices, such as insulated platforms, rubber 
gloves, etc., interrupt the circuit through which 
the current would otherwise be carried. A bird 
alighting on a charged wire does not receive a 
shock because it is in contact with only one side 
of the circuit. 


The Controller and the 


Starting Resistance. 


This brings us to the explanation of the motor- 
man’s controller (C. in illustration), which is 
simply a device for opening the circuit (break- 
ing the flow of electricity), to stop the car, or 
closing it (completing the circuit), to start the 
car. 

You have noticed when the motorman starts 
his car that he turns the handle of his controller 
a “notch” at a time as the car speeds up. If he 
did otherwise, the immense power available from 
the trolley wire would cause the motor to spin the 
car wheels, like a steam locomotive whose engi- 
neer has opened the steam throttle too wide. 











The first slight turn, or notch, of the controller 
completes the electric circuit, allowing the cur- 
rent to flow and start the motor, but, before the 
current enters the motor it is led through a num- 
ber of thin iron grids (See R. G. in illustration), 
like lattice work, whose long path offers a large 
resistance to its passage and keeps it small in 
amount. The next slight turn of the controller 
shuts or cuts out some of this resistance, shorten- 
ing the resistance path and therefore letting more 
current flow through the motor, and so on, with 
the next notch, until all of the resistance is 
“shunted” or cut out of the circuit, and the full 
pressure of the electric current is available to 
make the car run at full speed. 


The Air Brake. 


Did you ever notice a steam locomotive pant- 
ing like a runner just after a race? You may 
be surprised to learn that the “pants” in this case 
are not from the run but from the stop. 

When the engineer of the Twentieth Century 
Limited, running at full speed, turns his air brake 
handle into the position called ‘“Emergency,” 
some 96,000 horse-power are instantly loosed by 
the air brakes in stopping the wheels. The com- 
pressed air used to apply the immense braking 
force is automatically replenished by the air 
pump on the locomotive, and it is this air pump 
that puffs or pants after a stop. 

The air brake also necessary for the heavier 
types of electric cars is an identical apparatus, 
and equally as efficient. This air pump (A. P. in 
illustration) is driven by a small electric motor; 
doubtless you have heard it humming away after 
a stop or two, storing compressed air in reser- 
voirs, available for instant use (A. R. in illustra- 
tion). The brake valve handle which the motor- 
man turns with one hand, is probably as fa- 
miliar to you as the controller handle which he 
turns with the other hand. The valve thus op- 
erated allows the air under high pressure to flow 
from the reservoir (A. R. in illustration), to the 
“brake cylinder.” From this point the operation 


AREER 


Return Circuit 
—" to Power Hause 


HOW A MODERN ELECTRIC STREET CAR OPERATES 


4 


is simple; the brake cylinder is a cylinder per- 
haps 8 inches to 14 inches in diameter. The air 
is admitted rapidly at one end through perhaps 
a l-inch pipe, and drives slowly before it a “pis- 
ton.” If the pressure in the l-inch pipe is 70 
pounds, the pressure against the piston (in the 
case of the 14-inch piston) is multiplied 196 
times to 14,000 pounds, and it is this immense 
force, further multiplied perhaps 10 times by lev- 
ers, which presses the iron brake shoes against 
the wheels and brings the car to a sudden stop. 

Sounds involved, doesn’t it? A photograph of 
the bottom of a car would present to view an 
array of apparatus, complex, it is true, but neces- 
sary to make the operation of the car simple and 
safe, and each piece of the apparatus could be 
explained as simply as the motor or controller, 
or the air brakes. 


The Amount of Power 
Used by a Car. 


To start an ordinary car requires 15,000 times 
as much electrical energy as that which bright- 
ens the filament of the ordinary incandescent 
lamp, or drives the ordinary fan motor. 

If the car is also heated by electricity the en- 
ergy used for that purpose is from 25 per cent to 
50 per cent as much as is used by the motors to 
propel the car. 


Third Rail System. 


Another method of carrying current to the 
electric car, is known as the “third rail system.” 
Instead of an overhead trolley there is a third 
rail on which no wheels pass but a contact brush 
draws the electric current from the third rail into 
the car to the controller in the same manner as 
the trolley wheel does in the trolley wire sys- 
tem. 


The Remarkable Efficiency of 
Electric Railway Motors. 


The electric railway motor is vastly more effi- 
cient than the finest steam plant or gasoline en- 
gine; in fact the electric motor wastes only some 
25 per cent of the energy fed to it, using 75 per 
cent in useful work turning the car wheels. The 
best steam turbine or gasoline engine wastes 75 
per cent of the total heat energy fed to it and can 
use only 25 per cent. 


How an Electric Railway 
is Operated. 


Team work, the same kind of team work 
learned on the football team and on the baseball 
team, takes the foremost place in the operation 
of an electric railway. The fact that a man hold- 
ing the lowest position in the employ of one of 
these privately operated companies can rise to 
be president of the road or hold others of the 
highest positions, results in these employes striv- 
ing hard. Efficiency and hard work count on 


the great electric lines, for unless an employe is 
capable no influence or “pull” will help him. This 
reward for the efforts and the fascination attend- 
ing the furnishing of the public with so impor- 
tant a service perhaps accounts for the saying 
“Once a railway man, always a railway man.” 


The dispatcher is the quarterback of the trans- 
portation team. He appoints the crews each to 
their task (the railway man even uses signals) 
and sees that they take the cars forward at ‘the 
best time to do the most good. The American 
people are a riding people and as you know serv- 
ice’ is mostly needed in the morning and at night, 
during what are called by railway men the “rush 
hours.” (See “car service diagram for typical 
city electric railway.”) No two consecutive days 
seem to be alike. 


It is difficult to foresee delays and keep the 
cars on their schedule, but the dispatcher must 
do everything possible to maintain a satisfactory 
schedule with the tracks and cars that are pro- 
vided by the money risked by investors in the 
enterprise. 


The Chicago Loop District. 


To give an idea of the local transportation traf- 
fic which moves into and out of a small area 
morning and evening, at the “rush hours,” no 
city affords a better example than Chicago with 
its “loop district.” This district is less than a 
square mile in area. It is that business section 
of the city, for the most part retail, which is sur- 
rounded by the elevated structure upon which 
elevated electric street cars run—the third rail 
system. The loop section, as has been said, is 
less than a square mile in area, while the city 
contains one hundred and ninety-nine square 
miles. 


More than 62 per cent of all the passengers 
carried daily on the Chicago Elevated Railroads 
enter the loop, and of that number over 51 per 
cent enter in one hour in the morning and leave 
in one hour in the evening. 


The crossing at Lake and Wells Streets on 
the elevated, in Chicago, has been called the 
busiest railroad crossing in the world. Unques- 
tionably it is entitled to the honor for in the 
morning hour of maximum travel sixty-four 
southbound trains and fifty-eight east and west 
bound trains cross it, or one hundred and twenty- 
two trains, or five hundred and ninety-six cars, 
in sixty minutes. 


Maintaining the Road in 
Operating Condition. 


The maintenance forces, consisting of the track 
men, the shop men, inspectors, electricians and 
others, are the “trainers” of the railway team. It 
is their work to keep the system in as perfect 
working order as circumstances will permit. For 
this purpose there is an endless stream of sup- 
plies coming and leaving the storerooms, 


The storekeeper of one of the large electric 
roads in Illinois says that he has to keep in stock 
15,000 different kinds of articles for the main- 
tenance of the property, varying from a track 
spike to a complete railway motor. The smaller 
lines are not a great deal better off in this re- 
spect, especially if they are compelled to operate 
the older and more troublesome types of equip- 
ment, on account of being unable to attract in- 
vestors’ funds for new and improved equipment. 


Rolling stock (as the cars are called), track 
trolley wire and electrical equipment, are sub- 
ject to particularly heavy wear and tear and the 
pole lines, buildings, bridges, etc., representing a 
considerable investment, also require a large ag- 
gregate of painting and repairs. The painting of 
cars costs between $50 and $100 per car every 
year, if the original wood and steel is to be pre- 
served. The mere inspection of cars, in order to 
insure the safety and reliability of all parts, may 
cost $300 per car each year under favorable cir- 
cumstances. The renewal of worn out brake 
shoes, which press down upon and stop the 
wheels, is often the largest single item of expense 
on a small property. 


What the Cars Cost. 


The modern pay-as-you-enter street car or in- 
terurban car does not represent so much money 
considering the number of passengers carried as 
a costly limousine, because the limousine is de- 
signed to create luxury for a small number of 
persons, while the street car is designed to carry 
a large number of persons comfortably and safe- 
ly. Nevertheless the trolley car with its steel 
construction, its intricate machinery and care- 
fully fitted parts, represents quite a snug sum of 
money. They cost from $8,000 to $18,000, which 
is twice or even three times that of five years 
ago. The modern interurban cars cost $25,000 
each. 

In addition to the city electric railway lines, 
there are electric interurban systems traversing 
the state, linking up the cities with smaller com- 
munities and the family districts. These have 
proven of great benefit to the state, providing 
transportation for many communities not served 
by the railroads, developing cities and towns 
along their tracks, and giving frequent and ef- 
ficient service. These interurban lines employ 
larger cars than the city lines and do both a 
passenger and freight business. In some lo- 
calities they haul the mail. On a number of 
lines the same conveniences exist as on the 
railroads, such as dining, sleeping and parlor 
cars. At the present time there are about 1,625 
miles of interurban tracks in the state. 


A recent innovation in several cities and towns 
has been a type of car known as the “safety car.” 
This is operated by a single employe, who acts 
both as motorman and conductor. This car is 
smaller than the “two-man” type of car, has four 
wheels and is equipped with elaborate safety de- 
vices. It was originated when the high costs of 


operation of the heavier and larger car necessitat- 
ing two men for operation, caused electric rail- 
way experts to investigate how expenses could 
be reduced and yet a good and efficient service 
for the public be maintained. ; 


Safety First. 


Every street railway system, as you know, has 
as its very first aim, the safety of its passengers. 
Every company in fact, has its “Safety First” 
organization, which it holds responsible for its 
safety measures. 

How one of the large companies has succeeded 
can be seen by the fact that in a period of over 
twelve years it has carried two billion passengers 
without a fatal accident while on their trains. 


To accomplish a record like this requires the 
active co-operation of every employe, foreman, 
and “head of department” in the work of doing 
away with dangerous conditions and the setting 
up of safety regulations as well as help from city 
authorities and the public. 


The War Has Created a Hard 
Problem for the Street Railway. 


To anyone who has worked in the different 
departments of an electric railway it is a source 
of pride to consider how the expense of upkeep 
and general operation (including taxes) per mile 
can be kept anywhere near equal to the passen- 
ger fares collected per mile, and leave a balance 
if possible to pay the interest on the money in- 
vested in the enterprise. Certain it is that the 
young people now going to school will soon be 
interested, directly or indirectly, in these prob- 
lems of the present day. A great many will take 
their place in the electric railway industry, bring- 
ing to bear their technical knowledge in the de- 
velopment of better transportation, and more 
valuable still, their knowledge of the value of 
team work and fair play. Many others will also 
invest part of their savings in electric railways, 
either directly or through the banks and insur- 
ance companies and trust companies with whom 
they deposit their savings. 


How Electric Railways are 
Supervised. 


Being a convenience designed for all of the 
people, bordering close to an absolute necessity 
(no one wanting to go back to the days of the 
ox cart or horse and buggy as a method of ordi- 
nary travel), it was found necessary as the elec- 
tric railway industry grew, to have it controlled 
by some form of government regulation. In most 
states this has taken the form of regulation by 
state commissions, which act much as the Fed- 
eral Interstate Commerce Commission does in 
regulating the railroads. These commissions 
have several fixed rules to abide by which may 
be summarized as follows: 


1—See to it that the public is given adequate 
and unbroken service at a just rate of fare. 2— 
Protect the investment that has been made by 
the thousands of persons who have loaned the 
money that makes possible the furnishing of 
service. 3—Correct situations that hinder con- 
tinuous development and improvement of lines 
and equipment, as such untoward conditions 
would be against the public good. 4—Judge 
all matters coming before them impartially and 
without prejudice, for if either the companies or 
the public are dissatisfied with a decision, the 
courts may be asked to review it. 

During the war period these commissions 
faced a difficult situation. The tremendously in- 
creased costs of labor and materials could not be 
met by the 5-cent fare which companies generally 
had established away back when no one could 
foresee such a catastrophe as the European war. 
It soon became apparent that a crisis had been 
reached, which permitted of only two answers: 
either to raise fares or permit the transportation 
lines to be wrecked. As the latter would have 
been disastrous to any community to the point 
of entirely disrupting business and affecting all 
property values, whether invested in a business 
or in a home, the first course was necessary. It 
became the regulatory authorities’ duty to deter- 
mine what the increase in fare should be that 
would permit continuance of adequate service. 

The situation became so serious that President 
Wilson appointed a commission to investigate 
the entire electric transportation situation of the 
country, this being the first time in history that 
the government had been asked to investigate the 
condition of any branch of the utility industry 
as affecting the good of the nation. It was found 
that under past rates, the surplus earnings of the 
roads available to pay interest on money invested 
in the lines had been so inadequate that one-sixth 
of the roads had been forced into bankruptcy or 
had been abandoned and the tracks torn up. 
Practically every electric line in the country was 
found to be in financial troubles. While the fed- 
eral government gave no direct aid, the changed 
conditions resulting from the government inves- 
tigation, as well as those by other regulatory 
authorities, was such as to bring public apprecia- 
tion of the situation faced both by the companies 
and the public. 

As there are in Illinois 90 electric railway sys- 
tems, in which $456,200,000 had been invested up 
to the end of 1919, the majority of those secur- 
ities being owned by thousands of citizens of the 
state, there was considerable concern over the 
problem, particularly as it resulted in a refusal 
to loan money for use in the public service by 
the transportation lines. Regulatory authorities 
all over the country have been confronted with 
the same problems as in Illinois and every effort 
is being made to correct the situation and bring 
about prosperous conditions such as will enable 
development to continue. 

There is the division of the army which fur- 
nished the brains that built the road; the still 


large section composed of the investors or stock- 
holders, who furnished the money with which to 
build the actual properties ; the debtors—or bond- 
holders from whom the road has borrowed money, 
and the employes who actually operate the road 
and furnish the service obtained by the public. 


Where the Passenger's Fare Goes. 


When you hand a street car conductor your 
fare, where does it go? How does the company 
have to divide up your money in order to meet 
the expense of giving you the ride? 

As has been previously explained it takes a 
small army of persons, all working at some defin- 
ite task, to make possible your ride. Each per- 
son in this army must be paid a wage and should 
obtain his just share of the fare you pay. 

The chart (The Electric Railway Dollar), takes 
a dollar paid in by car riders and divides it in the 
manner it should go if all in that army were be- 
ing paid their wages and the expenses of the road 
were being fully met. It was the failure of the 
roads to earn sufficient money, in the last sev- 
eral years, experts say, to pay all of these wages 
and expenses, as outlined in this chart, which led 
the serious financial trouble affecting the entire 
electric railway industry of the nation. This, 
they say, was due to the roads charging a fixed 
fare, generally 5 cents, and not being able to fix 
the prices they have to pay for money loaned to 
them and for wages, fuel, equipment and the 
many other expenses. This situation became so 
serious that 460 cities of the country found it nec- 
essary to increase the price of fares to help out 
the roads, but in many instances this aid came 
too late and the serious trouble spoken of be- 
fore resulted. This worked a great hardship 
upon all other business and upon the public. Not 
only did it result in poor service to the public, 
but because no one would loan the roads any 
more money inasmuch as they could not pay in- 
terest, but the building of lines, extending of 
tracks to neighborhoods that needed car service 
and the buying of cars and other equipment, was 
forced to stop. 


The chart prepared by experts indicates how an 
ordinary company would divide a dollar received 
in fares were it prosperous and growing and fully 
able to pay all of the wages and expenses. It 
shows that the dollar is divided into three big 
divisions, which are as follows: 


I—W AGES TO EMPLOYES (34 cents of 
each dollar): This represents the number of 
cents of each dollar that would be paid as 
wages to motormen, conductors, track men, 
shop men, office employes, etc. 


2—INTEREST TO INVESTORS (37 cents, 
or 7.4 cents per year for each dollar the 
road costs):—This is the number of cents 
that would be taken from each dollar to 
pay the wages, or interest, on the great 
sum of money the company has to spend to 
build the tracks and roadbed, put in trolley 


wires, buy street cars, build car barns and 
power plants. As the car company owners, 
who are known as the stockholders, must in- 
vest $5 in property for each $1 they can expect 
in a year in fares, it can be readily seen that 
the cost of building an electric railway prop- 
erty is tremendous and that if a fair wage in 
the shape of interest is not paid, the money can- 
not be obtained but would go into other busi- 
nesses where there was a better chance of 
making a living, or profit. 


3—GENERAL EXPENSES (29 cents) :— 
This includes such items as depreciation, taxes, 
rentals, miscellaneous expenses, injuries and 
damages, materials and supplies and power. 
We will take them up in order and see what 
they mean. 


(a) Depreciation:—There is_ constantly 
wear and tear on tracks, cars and plants and 
there must be constantly repairs, as well as 
entire replacement of parts. If this were not 
carefully attended to the cars, machinery and 
tracks would soon be merely junk. 


(b) Taxes:—The street railways are heavy 
taxpayers, particularly so when the amount 
they take in as fares is considered in proportion 
to the great sums they must invest in property. 
From the fare of every car rider a certain 
amount must be taken to be turned over to 
the city, county, state and federal governments 
as the share of taxes all industry of a commun- 
ity must pay. This money is used, in the case 
of towns and cities, in making streets, laying 
sewers, building sidewalks, maintaining a pol- 
ice force and paying the salaries of men elected 
to office, such as the mayor, city attorney, 
aldermen, etc. 


(c) Rentals:—This item includes rents the 
average company must pay for tracks, lands 
and other facilities not directly owned. 


(d). Miscellaneous expenses :—This includes 
items of operation such as office expenses, etc. 


(e) Injuries and damages:—In spite of 
“safety first” efforts, street cars will bump into, 
or be bumped into, by automobiles, wagons, 


THE ELECTRIC RAILWAY DOLLAR. 


How Experts Say a Dollar in Fares Would be Divided by an Average Prosperous and Growing Company 
Able to Give Good Service and Paying All Necessary Wages and Expenses. 












PON I a6 ay 
WOULD GOTO 
THE INVESTOR FOR 









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AMOUNT PAID FOR LABOR, 
OLELE RNA LRP IEG: 


HIS MONE Y.THERE MUST 
BEINVESTEO IN TRACKS, 
CARS AND OTHER EQU/P- 


—\CEIVED INA YEARS 

RV A\TIME 5 THEREFORE THE 

Xo < NIBOVE 37 CENTS WOULD 
RETURN TO THE 


vain DNHIS B85, 7.41% 
A YEAR. 















etc. There are sometimes other accidents, 
this being an unavoidable result of the neces- 
sity that in furnishing transportation the tracks 
must run through streets largely used, so as 
to make them immediately available to the 
greatest number of people. 


(f) Materials and supplies:—The electric 
railways are heavy buyers at all times. This 
money goes for the hundreds of things needed 
to keep the tracks in good condition and the 
cars moving. 


(g) Power:—This is the money spent for 
electricity, either through developing it at a 
power plant owned by the railway or buying 
it from an electric company. It is the price 
the companies pay to “make the cars go.” 


Electric railway experts say that had the 
dollars taken in as fares from riders been suf- 
ficient to be divided as outlined, there would have 
been no financial trouble, and the public would 
have been spared the hardships that have re- 
sulted. The high prices for everything the elec- 
tric railway companies had to buy, however, soon 
forced an average division of the dollar received 
as follows: 


Wages of employes:—Out of each dollar 
taken in 48.53 cents was being paid out as 
wages to employes. 


General expenses :—For these purposes 42.90 
cents had to be spent of each dollar of riders’ 
fares. 


Interest to Investors:—Instead of receiving 
37 cents out of each dollar, only 8.57 cents was 
paid, or 28.43 cents per dollar less than should 
have been paid. In other words the electric 
railways were earning just 28.43 cents per dol- 
lar less than they should have been if they were 
to pay all of their just wages for both labor, 
capital and expenses. 


With 8.57 cents out of each dollar being paid, 
it can readily be figured what wages capital was 
being paid and why it went on a strike. As has 
been stated investors, who are the owners, spend 
$5 for tracks, equipment, etc., for each $1 they 
may expect back in a year in fares. Their wage 
comes out of the $1. In other words the 8.57 
cents was being earned on $5. This would 
amount to wages of but 1.71 cents on $1. It can 
be seen that would not do, because any savings 
bank would pay 3 cents wages, or interest, on any 
money deposited by a thrifty person with it, or 
1.29 cents more per $1 than the electric railways 
were earning and able to pay. This was much 
less than a government bond would pay. That 
being true thrifty people would not lend their 
savings to the electric railways, because they 
could not expect a just wage in the shape of in- 
terest for the use of the money. In other words 
it was proven that the electric railways must 
earn and pay the same wage for money as other 
businesses, which varies from 6 to 8 per cent. 
Experts say that this would amount to about 37 


cents on $5 and that unless that amount is paid, 
the railways can not expect people to loan them 
money. That would stop the building of more 
lines and prevent development of the existing 
roads. 


The Rush Hour Problem. 


The chart headed “Car Service Diagram for 
Typical City Electric Railway,” illustrates 
one of the most difficult problems that the 
electric railway companies have to face. That 
is the “rush hour” problem, involving the few 
hours of the morning or late afternoon when 
people are either rushing, as a body, to get to 
work, or in the same fashion, to get home. 


If there were a steady flow of car riders over 
the “waking” period of each 24 hours, the trans- 
portation problem would not be difficult. But 
that is not so. The result is the companies must 
purchase large numbers of cars and other equip- 
ment as well as have large forces of employes, 
who can be used only these “rush hours” of the 
day, tying up great sums of money in an invest- 
ment that is idle and lying in the car barns 20 
out of each 24 hours of the day. 


As an illustration of this big problem the chart 
represents an actual city company compelled to 
use a maximum of 450 cars in its “rush hours” 
and applies particularly to all industrial com- 
munities. The number of cars actually necessary 
to handle traffic at various given hours during 
the day is indicated, this showing the two 
“peaks” or rush periods. 


The chart shows that at 5a. m. but 30 cars are 
sufficient. At 6 a.m. people are starting to work 
and 120 cars must be on the lines; by 7 a. m. 
there is a great rush on and 390 cars are needed; 
at 7:30 a. m. the “peak” is reached and 450 cars 
must be in operation. But this rush only lasts 
less than a bare hour, but this extra equipment 
must be there during that time. By 9 a. m. 210 
cars will haul all passengers wanting transporta- 
tion and by 10 a. m. 120 cars are sufficient. 


From 10 a. m. until about 4 p. m—6 hours— 
only 120 cars are needed, as compared with 450 
cars during the “rush hour,’ and the rest are 
idle. 


About 4 p. m. the shoppers start home and 
again the idle cars must come out of the barns 
with their crews. By 5 p. m. 360 cars are needed 
and by 5:30 p. m. the number must be 435 cars. 
These cars are needed only about half an hour, 
for by 6 p. m. the demand has been reduced to 
420 cars and by 7 p. m., when the majority are 
home at the evening meal, it is only 180. By 
8 p. m. the demand has dropped to 120 and by 
9 p. m. to but 90 cars. From that time on until 
5 a. m. the next morning it drops gradually from 
90 to 30 cars. 


Efforts to bring about an even traffic on street 
railway lines, such as would “iron out” these two 


“rush hour peaks” have been unsuccessful, inas- 
much as the public demands transportation when 
it wants it, and not as the companies would like 
to give it. 

In the typical case cited by this chart it is 
shown that the riding demand on the part of the 
public results in 80 cars out of each 100 being 
used less than four hours a day. The company 


has to pay just 4s much for these cars as it does 
for those that “work” and earn 24 hours a day. 
Picture a factory in which 100 men are employed, 
80 of whom work and produce less than four 
hours a day, but all of whom demand wages for 
a full day’s labor that they do not perform, and 
you have a similar situation to that involving this 
idle equipment problem of the electric railways. 


CSR Se&RVICE DISGRANM FoR 
TYPICAL CIrTy ElecTRIC RAILWAY 


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TIME OF DAY. 


Some Electric Railway Facts. 


Illinois is served by 90 electric railway com- 
panies, they having 3,841 miles of track. 
Stretched out in a straight line these tracks 


would reach from New York to San Francisco. 


and then on out 655 miles into the Pacific Ocean. 
The investment they represent totals approxi- 
mately $456,200,000. 


* * % 


The Illinois electric railways carry more than 
two billions of car riders annually. The Chicago 
street car lines, alone, last year carried approxi- 
mately 1,300,000,000 riders, this being ten times 
the number hauled by the Pennsylvania Railroad 
and 50 times those who rode on trains of the Bal- 
timore and Ohio Railroad. Chicago, alone, has 
enough electric railway tracks to reach from that 
city to New York and out into the Atlantic Ocean 
400 miles. As a whole the electric roads carry 





ten times as many passengers as the steam rail- 
roads, 
billions. 


in 1919 the number exceeding sixteen 


How riding on street cars has increased :—In 


1890 there were but 32 rides per inhabitant in 
the country in the full year; in 1902 the number 
was 61; in 1907 it was 85; in 1912, 100; in 1917 
it was 109; in 1919 it was 114; in other words in 
1919 the total number of “fares” in the country 
divided by the number of men, women and chil- 
dren, averaged 114, this big total resulting largely 
from the fact that workers ride back and forth 
every working day of the year. 
* * * 

In 1888 there were but 8 miles of electric street 
railways in the United States—or the world, for 
that matter, as this country was the pioneer. In 
1919 there were 901 companies in the United 
States operating 49,484 miles of track, or nearly 
enough to circle the earth twice. 

* * * 


= 


About $6,000,000,000 has been invested in street 
railway property, this coming from approxim- 
ately 550,000 investors—men, women, insurance 
companies, savings banks, etc. About $800,000,- 
000 of new money must be had each year to build 
new tracks and buy equipment to keep pace with 
the rapid growth of the country and this must be 
obtained from the savings of people who will 
loan it in return for the interest they expect to 
receive on their money. 

* %* * 


There are over 300,000 employes, this includ- 
ing motormen, conductors, shop men, track men 
and executives, and probably as many again in 
the industries that make the equipment and sup- 
plies needed to keep the lines operating. 

* * * 


In developing the electric railway as a means 
of transportation, the United States was not only 
the pioneer, but has kept far in the lead of any 
other nation, there being far more track mileage 
per inhabitant; far superior equipment; greater 
speed and more comfort in riding, as well as 


lower fares. 


How to Use this Bulletin. 


Debating: Suggested topics for formal or in- 
formal debating: 


1—Resolved: That the Aeroplane will replace 
the Steam Railway. 
2—Resolved: That aside from long distances, 


Electric Car Travel is Preferable to Steam 
Travel. 


Rhetoric, Oral English, and Current Topics 
Classes: 
1—Make a three minute review of this Bulletin. 


2—The Value of Street Car Service to this 
Community. 


3—How does electricity propel a street car? 
4—The street car and retail trade. 

5—The value of the Interurban system. 
6—How the Local Car System Operates. 
7—The Street Car and City Expansion. 


8—Can the Truck and the Automobile Dis- 
place the Interurban? 


MAY, 1920 





For Additional Bulletins Please Address: 


Illinois Committee on Public Utility Information 


203 South Dearborn Street 
CHICAGO, ILL. 














11 












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